Lab-grown mouse muscles enable tiny robots to jump, swim, walk and grasp

MIT scientists build a tiny robot that swims using living muscle cells

MIT engineers have built a paper-thin swimming robot powered by living muscle cells that respond to flashes of light, allowing it to swim and steer through water. The breakthrough could pave the way for tiny, self-healing biological robots capable of exploring fragile environments that ordinary machines cannot safely navigate.

Lab-grown mouse muscles enable tiny robots to jump, swim, walk and grasp

Lab-grown skeletal muscle tissue can contract, but the movement is often so slight that it is barely visible. This poses a problem for biohybrid robots designed to move using living muscles. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now demonstrated that it is not just the amount of muscle tissue that matters, but above all how the muscle and the artificial scaffold interact.

ETH research team creates robots with real muscles

ETH researchers built mouse-cell muscle robots that jump and run faster than previous bio-robots.

ETH scientists set to bring Terminator-style robots to life with lab-grown muscles

Scientists at ETH have created robot actuators containing living skeletal muscle tissue, grown from mouse cells, integrated with 3D-printed hydrogel scaffolds. The obvious next step is to build creepy, life-sized humanoids covered in living tissue that look indistinguishable from actual humans – exactly like the ‘cybernetic organisms’, or robots, in the Terminator films. (See video […]